SnG Heads up strategy for starters

HU SNG Strategy for starters

Heads-Up poker is the most complex form of Poker. At 9-max and 6-max tables it is  more likely that you will maintain certain “guide lines” to play your game. However Heads-Up depends more on reads and there aren’t that many guide lines to play with.

The Starting-phase: 50-30 BB

This is at the beginning of the SNG Most of the time you will get an impression of your opponent during this phase. Does he or she plays a lot of hands? Are there a lot of 3-bets? Does he or she c-bets every flop?It’s important that you take the initiative in the hand. A lot of times we fold suited-connectors during a 6-max game, during a Heads-Up we standard open it. Hands like Ax, Kx, Q9 and J8 are being played the same way. Many players make the decision to bet 3 BB pre-flop. My advice is: don’t. I’d choose to make it 2 BB We do this because we want to increase our edge. Edge basically means “how much we are better than our opponent”. If we have for instance a big edge it means we are much better. Because we have an edge we want to keep the poker as deepstack as possible. This is pure logic. If a person plays for the first time, and he or she plays against Phil Ivey and they both have 3 BB then that person would regularly win from Ivey. If that same person plays a Heads-Up SNG against Phil Ivey and they both have 1000 BB then Ivey would win almost every time, he doesn’t have to take that much risk and he could just wait and grab his chance. By opening 2BB you will keep the pots small and increase your edge. If your opponent 3-bets you, you will just lose 2 BB instead of 3 BB That takes us to our next point. How are we supposed to play flops? In 6-max games it’s quite easy to fold bottom pairs (the lowest pair) but in a Heads-Up game it is quite a strong hand. You’ll only hit a flop 1 out of 3 times, keep this is mind. If your opponent c-bets every flop you can conclude that he has been bluffing for sure. A reaction to this could be to raise his c-bet. On the flop you should keep the pots small, just like pre-flop, bet ½ pot. You might think that if you have a strong hand that you would like to get as much value as you can? That’s right, but you can’t bet a lot  if you have a strong hand and make very tiny bets when you have a weak hand. If you do this people will most likely figure out how you play and that’s just the thing that you don’t want. However you could look at this from another perspective. By betting ½ pot you are investing a small amount of chips to win relatively a lot. Your opponent won’t be able to figure out if you have a strong or a weak hand by analyzing your betting patterns.

Mid-phase 15-30BB

By the time we reach this phase we have an image of our opponent. We both have a 1500 stacksize and the blinds are 30/60, which gives us 25  BB The difference is that from now on there will be a lot more action pre-flop and a lot less post-flop. Don’t try to look at too much flops. You only have 25 BB and there isn’t much space left to take a peak at those flops. Before you know it you’ll lose some and your stack is all messed up. During this phase you have played quite some hands with your opponent and you’ll probably have some reads as well. If you have the idea that Villian plays a lot of flops then c-bet every flop Do you notice that Villian 3-bets a lot? Show some guts and 4-bet it (even if you have a hand which isn’t as good as his) This deters a lot.


The ending phase: 15-1BB

So this is it, the absolute endphase. Forget flops, it’s push or fold from now on. We both have a 1500 stack and the blinds are 75/150. In the begin and midphase you’ll use quite some reads but those aren’t going to help you now. You only have 10 BB left and you can’t afford to fold your button and BB 4 times in a row. If you have less than 10 BB you should always push. If you have between 11 and 15 BB then it depends on your opponents playing style. If you are playing against a loose player you can choose to push because often at a normal raise he will choose to 3-bet it. With a tight player you could try to cheaply steels his blinds.


This was my article about basic Heads-Up SNG poker. It’s extremely important to cherish your edge. You shouldn’t make weird pot bet bluffs because if you do this  you are taking too much risk and you are making the pots way too big and because of this you are decreasing your edge. You are better than your opponent so why take the risk? Always keep this in mind:
Edge + Volume = $